


A (Not So Typical) Post-Mission Routine

by afteriwake



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hot Chocolate, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Melinda Feels, POV Melinda May, Phil Coulson & Melinda May Friendship, Post-Episode: s01e22 Beginning of the End, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melinda tries to go through her typical post-mission routine after the events regarding the confrontation with Ward and Garrett but it doesn't go <i>quite</i> the way she had hoped it would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A (Not So Typical) Post-Mission Routine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So a long while back I had a [Christmas Fic Countdown](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/134408122533/christmas-fic-countdown-2015) that had a bunch of sentence starters and one of them was “ _YOU DON’T LIKE MARSHMALLOWS IN YOUR HOT CHOCOLATE? WHY DO YOU HATE LOVE_ ” and I wanted to do that for Coulson & May, but someone else asked me to do that for another ship so I set it aside, and then later my friend **sideofrawr** asked me to write those two for a 100 word fic and when I didn't use the ship for the drabble collection I decided to gift her with this fic for the ship instead. So please, enjoy!

She wouldn’t admit it, because it belied the tough image she’d built up and that tough image was sometimes worth its weight in gold, but there was nothing she liked more after a mission than to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate afterward. It had been something she’d been doing for so long it seemed second nature now, but here on the Bus it seemed to take every last one of her “covert ninja skills” as Skye joked she had just to be able to _do_ it.

One of the drawbacks of being on a team again, she supposed.

Normally she would wait until everyone was _finally_ passed out for whatever reason it was they had, whether it was too much booze or the adrenaline finally exiting their system or whatever, and then she’d go to the stove and stand over the small pot, stirring the milk until she could tell it was hot enough to add the chocolate syrup. She’d be damned if she’d deal with the water and chocolate powder crap; she was pretty particular with her chocolate syrup. She didn’t even like regular syrup. She had a hidden supply of Abuelita syrup hidden where not even the craftiest of the spies on this plane could find it, and she would measure out a fairly decent amount into her milk and stir as she let it simmer. Sometimes she’d add a little extra, depending on how much the mission made her want to pull her hair out. When she knew it was hot but not _too_ hot she’d pull it off the stove, steal some of the whipped cream she knew Coulson kept for ice cream, pipe that on top and then go to the cockpit for peace and quiet.

And most of the time she was lucky enough to get it.

Just...not tonight.

She’d added damn near half her bottle of syrup. The last time she’d done that...well, the last time she’d done that she got saddled with her stupid nickname. And it wasn’t like those yellow bottles of syrup were all that big. Well, they weren’t _small_ , but she knew with the amount of milk she had it wasn't going to be a small chocolate and cinnamon taste to her hot cocoa. It was a good thing she had one of those large mugs. A gift for Skye, who’d joked she needed _all_ the coffee, so as not to crash the Bus if they ever got to sleep at one and needed to fly at three. She’d given her a small grin but had been really touched. It was a really nice mug, decorated with a Van Gogh painting. She didn’t know how Skye had known she’d appreciate it, but she had.

She’d wanted peace and quiet to mull over Garrett and Ward’s betrayal on her own and just what they had done to her and her friends and to S.H.I.E.L.D. and how much she wanted to hurt Ward more and injure other certain parts of his anatomy instead of just his foot in private but apparently Coulson wasn’t going to let her. He was sitting in the copilot seat, looking out at the view in front of them. “Thought you could use the company,” he said.

“What I could use is my cocoa and some private time,” she said, sitting down in the pilot seat and pulling her feet up.

He looked over at her cup. “Whipped cream? No marshmallows?”

“Marshmallows are disgusting,” she said, making a face before taking a sip of her cocoa.

Coulson looked shocked. “You don’t like marshmallows in your hot chocolate? Why do you hate love?”

Melinda rolled her eyes. “You’re being over-dramatic, Coulson?” 

“Just trying to get you to...I don’t know,” he said, the shocked look dropping off his face, being replaced by something more sad and wistful. He leaned his head back on the seat. “It came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she said. She had some more of her cocoa, making sure it had a healthy bit of whipped cream in this sip. She was quiet for a moment after she swallowed. “Do you ever wonder what our lives would be like if we weren’t in this game? If we were doing something else?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But I know one thing. I never would have met you, and that would have been a damn shame.”

She turned to face him. “What if we had met somewhere else, though? Just two strangers in some random city somewhere else in the world.”

“Would it have been the same, though? Would we have been the same?” he asked, turning his head to look at her without lifting it up. “You may have still been with Andrew. I may never have left Manitowoc. I mean, there are a million different things that may never have changed if we’d never have gotten involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. Doesn’t really help to dwell on it, I’ve found.”

She sighed. “I suppose not. I just...it’s not going to get any easier after this. With S.H.I.E.L.D. gone, it’s just going to get harder.”

“Yeah, I know,” Coulson said, lifting his head up. “But we’ll get through it. We always do. It’s why we’re such a good team.” He got up then, and moved by her chair, hesitating a moment. Then he paused and leaned over, pressing his lips into her hair. “I’ll leave you alone. I know that’s what you want.”

She shut her eyes for a moment as he pulled away. “Phil?” she said when he moved away.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“There’s still some cocoa in the pot,” she said. “And I think Jemma has some marshmallows in the cupboard above the stove, which is probably a stupid place for them, but...” She turned to look at him. “Go get a mug.”

He gave her a grin and hen nodded before heading away from the cockpit. She turned around and looked back in front of her before bringing the mug back to her lips. Whatever was coming, as long as the two of them were a team, as long as they were on the same page, she was sure they could handle it. She had faith in that. She had faith in _him_ , and she had the feeling that that was going to be important in the days to come.


End file.
